I would argue that the large percentage of human societies and cultures throughout history where altruism is truncated or limited to one’s own kin disproves this argument. It would be hard to claim that the Aztec, Nazi, Soviet, Ik, or Canaanite cultures (to name but a few) displayed an intrinsic altruism or an inherent morality.
It was a social obligation
not to be altruistic; the same would seem to have applied in ancient Israel, vis-a-vis the Samaritans or non-Jews generally. Humans are clannish and a lot of our clannishness ironically comes from our sense of morality – for example, the presumed immorality of falling in love and marrying outside one’s religion, or outside of one’s culture.
But this is speaking of the values of an entire society. When it comes to individuals, it is different. For example, an individual in a Soviet society could “break the rules” by having compassion on those, that he is not supposed to have compassion for. He could be moved to pity by their suffering. Thus, the society is not actively promoting compassion for socially disfavored groups, but this human capacity to feel altruism still breaks through.
Likewise, in a racist society, children would have to be chided and socially conditioned; at a tender age, they “do not know any better” than to relate to the socially disfavored racial group as ordinary people.
Someone like Buddha didn’t
invent compassion, he merely encouraged it instead of suppressed it. Thus, I think it would be extreme to say that no human being ever had a genuinely altruistic impulse, prior to the appearance of Buddha or Jesus. At most, it would be untapped potential that was rarely actualized.
p.s. humanism existed among the Greeks and the Romans. In the Iliad, Homer is capable of viewing the Trojans compassionately; he portrays their own griefs, their own love of their children; their own perspective, ultimately. He doesn’t demonize the enemy.
The Roman writer Terrence, writing before the birth of Christ, stated “I am a human being;I consider nothing that is human is alien to me.” It’s reported that, when these lines were first spoken on the stage, the audience applauded.
from wikipedia:
Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto." St. Augustine says, that at the delivery of this sentiment, the theater resounded with applause; and deservedly, indeed, for it is replete with the very essence of benevolence and disregard of self. Cicero quotes the passage in his work De Officiis, B. i., c. 9. The remarks of Sir Richard Steele [1672-71729] upon this passage, in The Spectator, No. 502 [1712][1], are worthy to be transcribed at length. "The Play was “The Self-Tormentor”. It is from the beginning to the end a perfect picture of human life, but I did not observe in the whole one passage that could raise a laugh. How well-disposed must that people be, who could be entertained with satisfaction by so sober and polite mirth! In the first Scene of the Comedy, when one of the old men accuses the other of impertinence for interposing in his affairs, he answers, ‘I am a man, and can not help feeling any sorrow that can arrive at man.’ It is said this sentence was received with an universal applause. There can not be a greater argument of the general good understanding of a people, than their sudden consent to give their approbation of a sentiment which has no emotion in it
. If it were spoken with ever so great skill in the actor, the manner of uttering that sentence could have nothing in it which could strike any but people of the greatest humanity—nay, people elegant and skillful in observation upon it. It is possible that he may have laid his hand on his heart, and with a winning insinuation in his countenance, expressed to his neighbor that he was a man who made his case his own; yet I will engage, a player in Covent Garden might hit such an attitude a thousand times before he would have been regarded."–The Comedies of Terence(Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2006), page 290.
